Her smell lingers like a ghost on blankets strewn across the couch. Out the window that is frosting from the cold outside compared to the warmth inside, and beyond I see the street is empty. She has moved on. As I sit on the couch enveloped in her perfume so wore too strong it’s the memory that haunts me. As much as I wish it was as empty as the black streets below it holds my hand like she did twirling me about and wrapping me in promises about how this time this time it could be different. For a moment I believed her. For a moment is all I believe her anymore when there’s line after line of lies and excuses, each one I swallow a bitter poison pill eating me up from the inside out like emotional suicide. Maybe it’s better to be alone than to feel the way you made me feel; so good on the way up, never enjoying the ride because I knew it would always end. In these late hours I think I understand your addiction. How it would be preferable to be numb to the world than to be in a home empty with pain as the only guest. I smile. There’s refuge in knowing you’re like an abandoned pet; you’ll always make your way home, until you don’t. In the time between now and when you return or don’t I’ll always hope for you that you’ve found something better than inside your head and not lying dead somewhere. I’ve always been selfish. I want you back. At least for one more night.
Copyright © 2021 TJS Sherman All rights reserved.
Musing & Creating with T.J.S. Sherman 
Abandoned pet, wanting one kore pet. Enjoyed this verse.
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Pets take effort. They’re fun when they’re companions, not so much when you have to take care of them.
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Don’t have pets. Too much of a gypsy, but I remember them from childhood and maybe one day I’ll settle (like a stick in the mud).
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T.,
A sure-handed treatment here of that raw pain when you want the too-strong perfume, the bitter poison, more than anything else.
pax,
dora
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Sometimes the slow death is worth the small death. Sometimes we just don’t know better.
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Every time I open your posts I am always glad I did
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Those are very kind words, thank you!
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When I read this it feels like a haunting. So many contradictory senses and emotions swirling like an apparition. To decide more is only to make the apparition stop its torment.
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The problem with the things we crave is we can never get enough and are inevitably let down or left wanting.
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We all have wants that can create an atmosphere of despair. We love to hate our hopeless situations. So ironic. 🙂
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Felt like a knife being drilled into the heart deeper and deeper. This is:
There’s refuge in knowing
you’re like an abandoned pet;
you’ll always make your way home,
until you don’t.
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